


Day Seven - "Past"

by Element_of_Fabulosity



Series: Akatsuki no Yona Angst Week 2k19 [7]
Category: Akatsuki no Yona | Yona of the Dawn
Genre: Angst, Gen, Gore, I tried to make it graphic and I don't know how well I succeeded, Less angst than I was going for, anyangstweek2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 01:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Element_of_Fabulosity/pseuds/Element_of_Fabulosity
Summary: Two thousand years ago. Guen drinks the blood of the White Dragon God.





	Day Seven - "Past"

**Author's Note:**

> Oh look, I'm a day late again.  
> So, originally I was going to write something with Zeno and Kaya. Because that's the quickest way to cause suffering in this fandom, apparently.  
> But then my brain went, "wait. Everyone's written a Zeno Hell fic. The manga features (delicious) Zeno Hell. How the hell are you gonna write something that stands out among all that???"  
> So I wrote this instead. Because the mental image of something that doesn't go on a human body forcibly attaching itself to your bleeding stump is delightful.

“Boss?”

He holds up a hand for silence, his ears straining.

The sound reverberates through the forest again, rattling Guen’s bones. His ears ring long after it’s faded. He unclenches his jaw.

He’s never heard the gods _scream._

“What is it?”

Guen doesn’t answer right away. The air is heavy with anticipation, the other bandits waiting for his decision. Guen shrugs. With forced lightness, “nothing.”

Lao’s face is pale. He isn’t reassured; he’s never heard a sound like it either. But the two of them are the only ones in the raiding party who can hear the gods’ voices, and he won’t contradict Guen.

Guen guides his horse into the shadows of the trees. The others take their positions. Through the shrubs, Guen can just barely see Yin kick off her shoes and step onto the road. She slouches, leaning on a battered cane, and begins her slow, limping walk forward.

In a kinder world, Yin would’ve gone into theater and performed for royalty.

Guen slides his sword from its scabbard. Wets his lips.

Horses’ hooves rumble. Their riders appear-- five to Guen’s eight. They don’t even slow at the apparent sight of an old cripple. Yin breaks character and dives from the hooves at the last second, sword drawn before she’s back on her feet. She touches her fingers to her mouth and looses a shriek of a whistle.

Guen gallops into the center of the road, blocking the travelers. They stop, falling back into a tight circle. Guen slips on an easy smirk. “Hand over your money and you’ll live.”

One of them pipes up, a young thing who looks better suited to a brothel. She raises a bow with perfect posture. “How arrogant.”

* * *

“What happened after that?”

“...we lost.”

* * *

Guen yanks the knot tight with his teeth and spits out the cloth. Tree roots tickle the top of his head. His breath is loud, even muffled by his hand. He flexes the fingers of his right hand, and fresh pain shoots up his arm. He just manages to stifle his gasp.

Gods, he can hear Lao’s voice. _Big deal. So you have to wield with your left._

Somewhere above him, feet hit the ground. Voices float down to Guen.

“Come out and fight, coward. Where’s your bravado now?”

As much as he wants to pay them back for Yin and Lao and everyone else...Guen isn’t stupid. He offers up a wordless prayer. _Let them leave. Don’t let them look here._

“Do not forget that our deadline.”

They’re practically above him. Guen hold his breath, a statue.

“Of course not. Do not worry, my friend. We have time enough to rid this earth of one more murderer.”

The disgust dripping from the archer’s tone strikes something. Guen feels something snap. He’s on his feet before he realizes. What else does he have to lose? “Don’t talk about what you don’t know!”

Do they think he _likes_ what he does?

The only way to survive is to tear down someone else. The lords in their palaces have their wealth because someone else is poor. Guen’s stomach is filled because someone else’s is empty.

He isn’t proud. He never would’ve turned to this life if-

Three arrows point to him. Guen stares them down, trembling with blazing fury. “The world isn’t fair. Sure as hell isn’t kind.” His voice drops to a whisper. They lied; his life isn’t flashing before his eyes. Past stubborn defiance, there’s just a voiceless, childish rage at the unfairness of everything. “And don’t I wish I could change it.”

The world freezes.

Some unseen force _slams_ down, locking everything in place as though the air itself has turned to stone. It’s impossible to move. It’s impossible to think.

A second passes, and Guen wonders if this is death.

The unyielding pressure halts, then pulls away from Guen just enough. Sound is muffled, and the sunlight has a strange, indescribable quality to it. It’s an effort to breathe deeply, the pressure pushing air from his lungs as soon as he draws it.

**_And if you could, human?_ **

The voice is like no sound uttered by humans. Guen turns, inch by inch, moving as though through water. His sword hits the ground. His jaw turns slack.

There’s a god.

He-- he? She? It? They? They resemble the mural in the temple the same way a kid’s lopsided circle resembles the sun. Yet Guen would have to be blind and deaf to not recognize them.

He bows to the White Dragon God, his forehead pressed to the earth. 

**_Rise, human, and speak freely._ **

It sounds like...a drawl. Is that disrespectful to think? Guen wonders as he stands on cooked-noodle legs. Can the god hear him?

He can’t decipher anything in the god’s massive, amber eyes. He looks down at the glistening scales. His mouth is dry. “I apolo...uh. I humbly beg your forgiveness…” He feels as though he’s mocking the wizened High Priest in his old village as he stumbles over the flowery language. “I do not know what you-- um. Thou? Mean.”

**_Are the memories of humans so short?_ **

Guen is certain: that was derision.

**_You expressed desire to change this world, did you not?_ **

He didn’t…

Oh, Guen thinks. _And don’t I wish I could change it._ But there’s a world of difference between grief-driven dying words and the logistics of...whatever change meant. Guen can guess what the god wants. Like hell he’ll be their messenger, spouting pretty words at the world.

**_How sincere is that desire?_ **

Guen feels the blood drain from his face. “It was just something I said in the heat of the moment. I was angry- I mean, I’ve got issues of my own, who doesn’t? I learned the world isn’t fair long ago and I was just-”

A breeze cuts through the woods, the pressure all at once gone. Guen gasps for air. The hairs on the back of his neck rise-

He spins. The arrow grazes him, and several things hit Guen, one after another.

He’s still outnumbered and injured. Everyone else is dead and he’s going to be next.

He doesn’t want to die.

There are too many people still depending on him.

Guen can only see one path that he just might survive.

_“I meant it!”_

The pressure snaps back like a bowstring. It’s like Guen’s plunged deep underwater; every breath is a struggle. His knees and elbows locked, he meets great amber eyes. “Yes. I want to change the world.” He remembers the shrine back home. Echoes the High Priests’ prayers. “What would you have me do?”

The world is silent; even the squirrels have stopped skittering through the trees.

He’s just lied to a god’s face.

He was going to die here anyway. One last defiance isn’t a bad way to go.

**_There is one I would have protected, whose aim is also to change this world._ **

That doesn’t sound so bad. Guen doesn’t trust it. He swallows his questions: who? From what? And why is _he_ needed? “What do I have to do?”

The god dips their head, their neck arching. Light swallows their eyes; miniature twin suns throwing shadows across the trees. Leaves stir on the ground. An orange-yellow blur materializes, solidifying into a large, ornate goblet.

The coils of the god’s body move. Their neck curls to the side. They lift a foreleg as long as Guen is tall and drag their claws across their neck. Scarlet blossoms over the snowy scales. Rivulets run down and drizzle into the goblet. The heady scent of blood and something unidentifiable is suffocating.

**_Drink._ **

His stomach turns as he steps forward and lifts the full goblet with both hands. It’s heavier than it looks. The gold is cool to Guen’s palms.

A thought he doesn’t dare voice: if a god can wave their hands and make something like _this_ , why aren’t the temples flowing with riches?

Guen tips back the goblet and almost gags. He gulps the vile liquid, then wipes his mouth with his sleeve, still grimacing. He holds his expression blank as his fingers go slack. The goblet clanks on the ground, rolls and bumps his foot. Guen wills his voice not to waver. “Now what?”

**_Your sword._ **

Guen bends, picks it up. It’s awkward, holding it in his non-dominant hand. Blood and dirt crust the steel. His gaze returns to the god’s inscrutable expression.

**_Now, a sacrifice._ **

Guen blinks. His first thought is a goat-- his father sacrificed one from their herd every year, always the fattest and strongest of the bunch. Even when droughts came, his father would lead it down the hill to the temple. _It’s a test of faith,_ Guen remembers him telling his younger brothers. Guen only thought about how many coins that goat would go for in the market.

But there are no goats to be found here.

Guen looks at the travelers, all paralyzed. He wonders if it’s a mercy now that they can hear only one half of the conversation. He takes a step toward the one who killed Yin, his teeth grit.

**_Do you understand nothing, human?_ **

Guen stops, glancing upwards. It hits him what the White Dragon’s sneer means. _Sacrifice_ means throwing something valuable away. “You want me to kill myself.”

**_What use are you to me dead?_ **

Guen shivers. It strikes him that he’s bitten off far more than he can swallow. It’s too late to back out now. He stares down at the bloodied blade, the pieces inevitably fitting together. It’s obvious, he thinks numbly.

Guen lifts his right arm, every muscle twinging with the movement. “My arm. Will you accept it?”

The gods’ sacrifices are meant to be unblemished.

The White Dragon God says nothing, eyes larger than Guen’s hands never blinking.

Guen takes it as an affirmative. He lifts his right arm in front of him, as though he’s about to grab something. He presses the sword’s edge to his skin, midway between his elbow and his shoulder. Taking a breath that he doesn’t let go, he lifts the weapon above his head.

The sword falls.

Guen screams. He presses his arm to his mouth to stifle it, his sword landing in the dirt. Black spots explode over his vision. Blood pours like water from a tipped bottle.

The White Dragon God moves before Guen can react.

Scales flash through the air.

Guen’s arm lands several feet from him.

A sound like the trunk of an ancient oak snapped in two. The god’s neck curls back over itself. Massive jaws are clamped around an equally-gargantuan shoulder. The god jerks their head, flecks of blood spraying everywhere. Red stains their mouth.

A foreleg as tall as Guen tips...and stops, hanging in the air. The elbow bends, moving like something out of a horror story. It launches toward Guen.

He falls backwards scrambling away.

Exposed, bloody muscles melt like wax grown soft in the sun. The god’s severed limb mashes against Guen’s stump. A shudder wracks him as something searing and alien pours into his veins. The scales ripple forward over the gash, moving like a row of inchworms. A _snap_ splits the air. The claws are splayed. The elbow is bent in the wrong direction. The scales writhe like insects are slithering and crawling beneath it, twisting and warping and compressing.

The dewclaw twitches, an invisible force pulling it perpendicular with the limb. Then it _stretches_. The scales churn like boiling liquid.

Agony pierces Guen’s skull, a nail driven through bone. He clutches his head, fingernails scrabbling at his scalp, and screams-

The pain is gone.

The White Dragon God is gone too.

The limb attached at Guen’s right shoulder is the same size and shape as his left.

His right leg still lies several feet away, the skin off-color and fingers stiff, arrows still sticking out of it.

The travelers are rising. Guen meets horrified stares.

A whisper slithers through Guen’s ears. _Find Hiryuu._

* * *

A long silence.

“I must apologize...both for Hakuryuu’s actions...and for myself. If I had left this world when they asked…”

Irritation. “Then we wouldn’t’ve met, and Kouka Kingdom wouldn’t exist, and oh, I would’ve been dead!”

Violet eyes level an inscrutable expression. Another pregnant pause. “That power given to you...it’s slowly killing you. You will not reach a great age.”

Words sink in. “...never counted on it. I was a bandit. Now I’m a soldier.”

“You hated killing. That part of you has not changed.”

“It’ll be worth it. You’ll establish peace, one day. We’ll get there.”

A third silence, stretching a small eternity.

“What would you say if I said I was naive? If I told you this ideal --a world without war-- is impossible?”

**Author's Note:**

> And that marks the end of Angst Week! Yay.


End file.
